I’m sitting here watching the sun rise. I’m fortunate to have (and enjoy) the opportunity. I was out on the trail early, just at daybreak. It’s a frosty cold Autumn morning, here. There’s no rush to return home, and I know these early hours are good ones for giving my Traveling Partner a bit of time to get some sleep. We each have our different difficulties with sleep, and getting out of the house for a morning walk is one great way for me to show how much I care.
… And I enjoy the walk, the sunrise, and the quiet time alone, for myself…
Enough light to see the trail.
This morning I get back to the car too early to consider heading home, and haven’t yet gotten a “good morning” message from my partner, so I take time to meditate, and to sketch the gnarled old oak on the slope in front of my parked car. I’m bundled up for winter weather, but as the minutes pass, I become restless and ready to move on with the day. There’s a tree to decorate in the living room and I am filled with festive joy.
… It’s still pretty early. Saturday. I consider heading toward home and perhaps stopping along the way, maybe a bit of shopping?
I smile knowing my partner is getting the rest he needs.
Migrating flocks pass by overhead.
I listen to the sounds of migrating flocks of birds passing by. It’s a new day. It’s time to begin again.
I’m grateful for the terrible cup of coffee in my hand as I walk this morning. I switch hands with it, warming each in turn, walking and watching the sun rise. There’s mist in the low lands along the marsh, but it looks like blue skies above, so perhaps a sunny day ahead?
I stop and set down my coffee to take an occasional picture.
I walk and watch the dawn become day. The air is crisp, clean, and cold. Frost edges the shrubs and dry grasses. The gravel of the path crunches under my footsteps. Lovely morning for a walk along the edge of the marsh, in spite of the cold.
The path beyond me beckons.
I walk with my thoughts. My heart is filled with love and gratitude. What a pleasant holiday my Traveling Partner and I shared! The meal was excellent. The day was merry, and we delighted in each other’s company all day long. We each exchanged holiday well-wishes with friends and loved ones over the course of the day. We had everything we needed and more, and it wasn’t necessary to go out into the world or run any errands. We enjoyed the day at home.
It’s a new day now. I’m enjoying this quiet time on the trail on a chilly Autumn morning. I wonder if my partner went back to bed for a bit more sleep? I smile and finish this dreadful cup of coffee before it goes cold, and drop the cup into a trash can on my way back to the car. It’s already time to begin again.
First things first, there are no pilgrims or indigenous peoples in this particular tale. No genocide, not as any sort of direct cause or horrific result, either. This one is about gratitude and celebration, often of the most mundane details of life, and definitely about enduring and surpassing adversity, hard times, and struggle. Now.
Thanksgiving morning 2023
Gratitude is an important and healthy practice, and helps build emotional resilience and perspective. Our very human tendency towards ritual brings us together as families, tribes, and communities. Our likely most ancient and commonplace way to celebrate just about anything is through the communion of a shared meal. Wrap all of those elements together and the result is Thanksgiving. That’s the heart and soul of it, and it is worthy and beautiful.
Do we have historical baggage? Oh hell yes. The trauma, injustices, and ugliness of empire and of capitalism and patriarchy are too numerous to count or address in one tiny blog post written by one nearly unknown author. My point, personally, though is that Thanksgiving transcends all of that, if we simply stop trying to force it into some narrowly defined self-serving bullshit nationalist narrative intended to excuse a legacy of violence and othering, and allow ourselves a moment of honest gratitude for what we have and humble appreciation for what we have overcome.
I’m saying keep it real. Genuine. Authentic. Uncouple this beautiful holiday from the nonsensical marketing of the classic (and wrong-headed) good-guy narrative that is largely a lie wholly fabricated by people who probably knew better. Definitely address the original sins of our nation’s founding, it’s needful, but stop trying to use Thanksgiving as some kind of fucking excuse for, or cover-up of, legitimate horrors!
Cook. Feast. Celebrate. Give thanks. It’s been difficult this year and other years past. Share and give thanks – it could have been so much worse, and for so many it very much is worse, right now. Don’t waste time talking about the “first Thanksgiving” – talk about the last one (meaning the most recent) and all that has since transpired. Talk about making the world a better place with what you’ve learned since then.
… And after the feasting and the giving of thanks, put away the leftovers and do the dishes. Then begin again.
Sometimes life throws a curve ball. Our path may take a detour we didn’t see coming. Sometimes unexpected circumstances are a big deal, with a lot of upheaval or moments of adversity and tears. Sometimes it’s just a rainy morning that makes an early walk less feasible (or at least less pleasant).
Waiting for a break in the rain.
I woke early and tried to slip away without waking my Traveling Partner. It wasn’t raining when I left the house, but it clearly had been. By the time I got to the trailhead and parked the car, it was raining pretty steadily. I sat contentedly listening to the rain fall, spattering the car, meditating and watching the dawn become day.
I managed to get a half mile in, between rain showers, then another after warming up in the car. It’s somehow very satisfying and I find myself thinking “nice morning for it”, in spite of the rain and the autumn chill. What a lovely weekend.
I think of a distant and very dear friend who is ill, and wonder if I should make the drive down to see her again, very soon? I worry. She’s going through a rough time and has COVID on top of that. 😦
The sky continues to lighten. I watch the few soggy leaves still clinging to branches flutter in the breeze. Now and then a gust of wind rocks the car. I wait for another break in the rain and think about love.
It’s a new day. A Saturday. I woke from peculiarly surreal and also vaguely sexual dreams with a sense of being “interrupted” and also having slept in quite a bit (which is a pleasant luxury, for me). I dressed and quietly let myself out of the house to watch the sun rise from a local trail. It was a lovely morning for it.
Daybreak on a favorite trail.
…I walk on…
Later, as the morning develops along the way.
I followed that with routine errands, arriving home sufficiently early to enjoy my morning coffee with my Traveling Partner while he enjoyed his. We spoke of 3D printers and projects, and things of that sort, until we’d both finished our coffee and it was time to move on with the day.
…My dream(s) still linger in my thoughts, which is a bit unusual these days. I dreamt of kissing a dark-eyed youth in a collegiate stage of early adulthood, who captivated me with his quiet confidence and led me by the hand to some less-than-ideally private place to take things further, only, that turned out to be a local business (?!) that opened quite unexpectedly, filling with customers – young women dressed only in towels, giggling as they passed us. We left, and attempted to find a happy haven “at my place” – only it wasn’t my place at all, it was… the first floor of some bizarre high-rise condo, where the current owners politely explained that they had purchased my abode, and upon breaking through the ceiling discovered 3 further floors above, lavish, luxuriously appointed, and clearly out of my price-range. They were courteously apologetic about how obviously I did not belong there. We sat at their vast kitchen counter in an expansive kitchen that was never mine, sipping deliciously well-crafted espresso (even in my dreams, there is coffee). My dream ended in contemplation of “where to go next”, when I realized I was alone where I stood. No dark-eyed youth. No giggling young women. No urbane well-spoken householders. Just me, standing on a rainy street in the twilight of my dreams. I woke, ready for a new day, simultaneously amused and puzzled by my strange dream(s). I’ve been dreaming a lot lately. Thankfully, few nightmares, just strange surreal dreams.
I’m in enough pain today to feel quite distracted and disinclined to do much, but there is much to do, and I feel creatively inspired… I may spend some portion of the day in the studio, painting, if I solve some of the puzzles involved in the two pieces I am presently working on. Individual paintings take longer these days. They are… more “involved”, and have greater depth of meaning. I think this has been an outcome of going through menopause, strangely enough. My thoughts and my emotions seem to take longer to process fully, but I get more out of them when I “get there”. Emotions have more breadth and depth – and more recognizable significance, with less chaos. Thoughts travel along more tangents and down more rabbit holes, but once every thread is pulled, and every depth explored, I find I have a greater understanding of where I was headed in the first place, and what to do with my thoughts when I get there.
…I sip my coffee and think about how useful all that would have been when I was much younger, stronger, and faster. LOL Life is weird.
My Traveling Partner interrupts my writing to ask me what I’m doing (which I guess I should expect, since I chose to be writing in the living room; a space we routinely share). I answer. Then I manage to interrupt him when he shares a thought, and he sternly tells me he’ll “try not to be annoyed” by that. I manage to refrain from pointing out the interruption to my writing that started the conversation in the first place, which for me is no doubt similarly annoying. I chuckle to myself; we both find a flow state difficult to find or maintain if the other is in the same shared space. It is evident we enjoy each other’s company greatly. I do struggle to set boundaries when I am reading or writing, though, and he rarely seems to recognize that both those activities (for me) require my full attention and focus to enjoy properly, or understand that I sometimes want the full measure of my own attention for myself. I don’t bother to say anything about it (again). Then I wonder if that’s a mistake…
I sip my coffee and move on. Letting small things stay small has real value in life and love, and I’m not inclined to “start shit” on such a lovely Saturday.
I continue to fuss about a particular “how to” challenge with a painting I keep coming back to – it is a self-portrait, so perhaps I am “too close to the subject” in some way. I find myself stalled because it really wants a different technical approach than I typically prefer, and the requirement to slow down, take my time, and work on the practical details with consideration and discipline vexes me. There are no suitable shortcuts! Shit. This one is going to be “do it right, or don’t do it at all”, and this confounds me. There’s something to learn here, and I sip my coffee grateful for the lesson. I don’t suppose learning will slow the inevitable result of being mortal, but I hear it may keep me young(er)… sounds worthwhile.
I sigh outloud and sip my coffee. Age, aging, human life, human mortality… so much more obvious as concerns these days than they were in my 20s. I look at my pillbox… double-checking that I’ve taken everything up to this point in the day that I’m expected (required to). “Fuck aging” I mutter to myself, nonetheless grateful for medical care, and the prescriptions that help me maintain my health acceptably well.
I resign myself to being distracted from my writing; if I want to write utterly without distractions, I definitely need to be alone, and in an unshared space. That’s just real. I chose this location – and I did so because I want to enjoy my partner’s company, and also write. Not sure how I thought that would work. LOL
Well, shit. There are paintings to paint, and dishes to do… I suppose it’s time to begin again.
Evening Light 